Arts, Literature & Culture

A Year on the Edge of Civilization

Author Ken McAlpine stands in his front yard one night in Ventura, California, trying to see the stars. His view is diminished by light pollution, making it hard to see much of anything in the sky. Our fast-paced, technologically… Read More

An American Zen Failure in Japan

David Chadwick, a Texas-raised wanderer, college dropout, bumbling social activist, and hobbyhorse musician, began his study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1966. In 1988 Chadwick flew to Japan to begin a four-year period of voluntary exile and remedial Zen education.… Read More

Another Sketchbook of Weird and Wonderful Things in Japan

Following up on Clueless in Tokyo, this colorful sequel continues the author's adventures in the seemingly strange and wonderful culture of Japan. Amusing cartoons and succinct descriptions clarify and explain even the most bizarre of cultural oddities. From… Read More

How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin

When the Peace Corps sends Susana Herrera to teach English in northern Cameroon, she yearns to embrace her adopted village and its people, to drink deep from the spirit of Mother Africa—and to forget a bitter childhood and painful past.… Read More

Hard Travel to Sacred Places is the record of a personal odyssey through Southeast Asia, an external and internal journey through grief and the painful realities of a decadent age. Wurlitzer—novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner—travels with his wife, photographer… Read More

Portrait of an Adventurer

This unique biography explores the inner journey of a woman whose outer life was a thrilling story of passion and adventure. Alexandra David-Neel (18681969), born in Paris to a socially prominent family, once boasted, "I learned to run before I… Read More

The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist

The Wheel of Life is the spiritual autobiography of John Blofeld (1913-1987), a world-renowned British scholar and writer who devoted his life to the study of Eastern traditions, especially Buddhism and Taoism. With wit, honesty, and humility, Blofeld portrays… Read More